Book Smart Kate

Book: 🌟🌟🌟🌟💫  Audiobook: 🌟🌟🌟🌟💫 Spice: 🌶️🌶️

by @kristenbaileywrites (July 30, 2024) – Many thanks to the author, @NetGalley and @dreamscape_media for the advanced listening copy of the book!

James meets Zoe at a mutual friend’s wedding on the day her life falls apart. Months later, Zoe is reeling from her recent divorce, trying to keep her fragile new family dynamic, with two heartbroken children, from falling apart when James appears as a substitute teacher at the school where she teaches math. He’s young – too young for her. She’s in her 40s, he’s 29 – but they have an undeniable connection. Where Zoe feels the weight of obligations keeping her in one place, James is content to try different careers without a long-term plan other than his brother, nephews, and friends. As they begin to give in to their physical and emotional attraction, they struggle with figuring out how two people who seem so different could find a way to fit together without sacrificing themselves.

There are several things I love about Kristen as an author. First, her wit is unmatched. Second, she takes tropes that I usually find cringe and puts a spin on them, making me love the story and feel profoundly connected to the sweet, complicated characters she creates. In Sex Ed, she took the “teach me” trope and turned it into something extraordinary. Here, she takes an age gap trope and makes you root for what the characters bring out in each other while truly addressing the complications of a ~15-year age gap. The messy, complicated relationship between Zoe and James is fantastic, as is how Kristen creates raw emotion between Zoe, her ex, and their children as they navigate their father’s destruction of their marriage. James is an epic golden retriever, constantly thinking of others (sometimes to his detriment), but he teaches Zoe much about embracing joy.

Abigail Hardiman narrates the audiobook and she is one of my favorite British narrators.

What’s a trope that you love in a book?